Arts and Humanities Commons^™

An App A Day Keeps The Doctor Away: A Visual Case Analysis Of The Self-Optimization Ideologies Downloaded Onto Apple Users As They Download Applications, Ismahan Yusuf

MA Research Paper

This visually thematic qualitative case analysis seeks to advance cyber-sociology by analyzing the hyper-under-attended relationship between interfaces and discourses. Here, the interface under investigation is the Apple App Store, examined for the ways in which the platform is discursively encoded with particular ideologies, ideals, desires and narratives downloaded onto users as they download applications. Such is explored via a two-part research question inquiring: Which type of applications enjoy the most promotion on the Apple App Store and what cyber-architectural tools are herein used to optically exalt them? To investigate this, an iOS 11-operating iPhone was used to frequent the store’s …

Rachmaninoff's Piano Works And Diasporic Identity 1890-1945: Compositional Revision And Discourse, Renee Mackenzie

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This monograph examines the post-exile, multi-version works of Sergei Rachmaninoff with a view to unravelling the sophisticated web of meanings and values attached to them. Compositional revision is an important and complex aspect of creating musical meaning. Considering revision offers an important perspective on the construction and circulation of meanings and discourses attending Rachmaninoff’s music.

While Rachmaninoff achieved international recognition during the 1890s as a distinctively Russian musician, I argue that Rachmaninoff’s return to certain compositions through revision played a crucial role in the creation of a narrative and set of tropes representing “Russian diaspora” following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. …

Constructing ‘Farmer’ And ‘State’ Identities In Moral Discourses About Semi-Subsistence Agriculture In North-East Brazil, Karen E. Pennesi

Anthropology Publications

Anthropological analysis elucidates how discourses about agriculture in one North-east Brazilian community reflect relational roles of citizens and the state, the position of farmers in society, and the relationship of individuals to their work. In these discourses, farmers are positioned as moral, hard-working, autonomous citizens, justifying their participation in low-paying activities. The declining numbers of agricultural workers is explained as a result of individual laziness or government irresponsibility. In using these discourses to take stances publicly on agricultural issues, speakers assign responsibilities and moral status to agents. In constructing rural identities, such moral discourses emphasise the symbolic value of subsistence …

Interacciones Narrativas Árabe, Cristiana Y Judía: Convivencia Literaria En El Medievo Peninsular, David Navarro

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation develops a critical study based on identity theory, intergroup relations, and social discourse of the cultural symbiosis forged between the three religious communities of the Medieval Iberian Peninsula - Christians, Jews and Muslims - as reflected in four books written during this period, from the eleventh to the fourteenth century. In the case of Medieval Iberian literature, Semitic culture and traditions were absorbed along with Christian traditions in the development of a future Spanish identity that was reflected in the literary framework. Through this analysis and this theoretical framework it was possible to determine how intergroup contact affected …

In The Fullness Of Time: M. M. Bakhtin, In Discourse And In Life, James C. Hall

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The phrase “the fullness of time” touches upon one of M. M. Bakhtin’s most consistently upheld tenets; for Bakhtin, philosophical and everyday utterances rely on their historical embeddedness for the material and concrete reality from which they draw their meaning and through which they are conditioned, inflected, and re-evaluated. In his very last work Bakhtin stated that all meanings are in continuous evolution. In this thesis the attempt will be made to interpret Bakhtin’s corpus by concentrating particularly on the movement of historical and philosophical becoming, the art of responding to philosophy and the events of everyday life, and the …

Communicating Crimes: Covering Gangs In Contemporary Canadian Journalism, Chris Richardson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this integrated-article dissertation, I examine representations of gangs in Canadian journalism, focusing primarily on contemporary newspaper reporting. While the term “gang” often refers to violent groups of young urban males, it can also signify outlaw bikers, organized crime, terrorist cells, non-criminal social groups, and a wide array of other collectives. I build on Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical framework to probe this ambiguity, seeking to provide context and critical assessments that will improve crime reporting and its reception. In the course of my work, I examine how popular films like West Side Story inform journalists’ descriptions of gangs. Though reporters have …

"Ça Devient Une Question D’Être Maîtres Chez Nous”: The Canadiens, Nordiques, And The Politics Of Québécois Nationalism, 1979-1984, Terry Gitersos

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation analyzes the discourses produced by the selected newspaper coverage of the Montréal Canadiens and Québec Nordiques, two professional hockey clubs based in the province of Québec, from 1979 to 1984. Sport has long provided a medium for national identification, and constitutes one the most effective institutions through which the nation is imagined. This is especially true of Canada, where ice hockey has been celebrated as the country’s national game and a window into the Canadian soul. However, sport is a malleable institution; in Québec, hockey has long served as a symbol, speaking to French Canadian national identity, imbued …

‘Killer Vacations’ And ‘Murder Music’: The Discourses Of Gay Identity, Consumerism, And Race In The Gay-Dancehall Confrontation, James Rogers

Digitized Theses

Using Foucaultian discourse analysis, this thesis examines the discursive practices of AngloAmerican gay activists who respond to the homophobic lyrics and violence of Jamaican dancehall music and culture. Since the early 1990s, gay activists in North America and the United Kingdom have mobilized in opposition to the graphic anti-gay violence in Jamaican popular culture. While much has been written about the metaphor, performativity, and symbolic violence in dancehall music, there is a paucity of scholarship that analyzes the discourse of gay activists who, in taking aim at dancehall homophobia, arguably produce the framework in which dancehall is meaningfully discussed. My …